


I think about you constantly, but always with your back turned to me or in profile.

by deplore



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Experimental Style, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-30
Updated: 2019-10-30
Packaged: 2021-01-13 09:43:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21242066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deplore/pseuds/deplore
Summary: Dimitri dreams, or he doesn't. Felix exists, or he doesn't.Dimitri kneels in the cathedral again, not because he is pious but because there is pain within him coming from wounds he can’t comprehend using only his five senses. He clutches at his stomach and breathes raggedly, staring at the floor until Felix reaches down and tilts Dimitri’s chin up with only the faintest touch of his index finger. From where Dimitri sits half-crouched on the church’s desecrated grounds, Felix looks unnaturally large – there are ancient paintings of the saints decaying on the ceiling behind Felix, but they can’t move Dimitri the way this single man does.





	I think about you constantly, but always with your back turned to me or in profile.

**Author's Note:**

> In addition to the tagged content, this fic has content warnings for: patterns of thought resembling disassociation from reality, metaphorical dismemberment, bad mental health conditions in general, bad coping mechanisms, pretentious/highly stylized writing style. If in doubt about whether the content will be your cup of tea, I advise erring on the side of caution.

* * *

**05\. ego death**

The second thing that Dimitri notices is the thin wire wrapped around Felix’s arm, tight like a tourniquet. Precariously, he stands balanced on the wall’s guardrails, wedged in the arches of his boots. The monastery ramparts are high enough off the ground that all there is behind Felix are clear blue skies, with wisps of springtime clouds floating through, more like the thought of clouds than real ones – it strikes such an image that it takes Dimitri a few moments too long to realize that the other end of the wire is firmly tied to nearest fixture. His instincts comprehend what is about to happen before his mind can catch up.

Dimitri takes a step forward, but then finds himself transfixed: he cannot bring himself to move. “What do you think you’re doing?” he asks, calmly, voice full of rationality that he doesn’t feel.

“I will,” Felix says, “show you what freedom looks like.”

And then Felix neither falls nor jumps, he merely leans with the wind, expression peaceful, without even the slightest hint of tension in his limbs. Gravity pulls at his body like a needy lover and he descends and he descends and he descends until he suddenly doesn’t – the wire runs taut and pulls his weight back up – Dimitri watches from on high as Felix stops just inches from the brink and then gently reacquaints himself with the ground.

His right forearm follows the rest of his body soon thereafter.

Dimitri wakes up, but not with a jolt. He opens his eye and shudders underneath his blanket – his cold sweat has soaked into the sheets and leaves his skin feeling unpleasantly clammy. It’s only been a few days since he started sleeping in his old dorm room again, and he doesn’t feel at ease the way that he thought he would be.

He stares at the wall separating his room from Felix’s and waits for a sign. He waits and he waits, and then he waits: nothing happens, nothing changes. The image of Felix’s sword arm, divorced from the rest of his body, feels like an ill-formed metaphor that lingers uncomfortably in Dimitri’s mind as he attempts and fails to complete the analogy.

The first thing that he had noticed was that Felix was smiling, and he doesn’t know what that means.

* * *

**04.** **for all intents, a butterfly**

Dimitri kneels in the cathedral again, not because he is pious but because there is pain within him coming from wounds he can’t comprehend using only his five senses. He clutches at his stomach and breathes raggedly, staring at the floor until Felix reaches down and tilts Dimitri’s chin up with only the faintest touch of his index finger. From where Dimitri sits half-crouched on the church’s desecrated grounds, Felix looks unnaturally large – there are ancient paintings of the saints decaying on the ceiling behind Felix, but they can’t move Dimitri the way this single man does.

“I had a dream,” Felix says, smiling in a way that has more the nuance of a grimace, “that I found myself staring you down from the other side of the battlefield… you were crazed like a rabid dog. All our so-called friends were ready to die for you, so I drew my blade and killed you first.”

Dimitri closes his eye and concentrates on the feeling of Felix’s fingertips close to his throat; his touch is feather-light but feels impossibly heavy. “Rather than a dream… is that not a nightmare?” he murmurs.

“Or maybe that was real, and this is the nightmare,” Felix replies coolly. His voice cuts as sharply as his sword; Dimitri allows himself to relish in the pain as if it were a guilty pleasure.

Felix pushes Dimitri’s head up further, and Dimitri willingly exposes his neck. He imagines what it would feel like to clutch at Felix’s wrist and pull and pull and _pull_ until sinews untangle and flesh tears apart. He imagines what it would feel like if Felix unsheathed his sword and sliced straight through his throat. He imagines what it would feel like to finally receive an understanding of his own agony, like a holy revelation. These thoughts ease his pain, but not his desperation – for Dimitri, that has to be good enough.

* * *

**03\. infinite impermanence**

They argue once more and fail again to communicate. Their arguments don’t mean anything, but the fact that they argue does – at least, it does to Dimitri.

“I know what you wanted,” Felix says, curling his upper lip in disdain. “You wanted to choose, but you didn’t want the responsibility for your choices. You wanted to do what was right, but you didn’t want to be at fault if something went wrong.”

“That’s not it,” Dimitri replies, but he isn’t sure if he means it or if his pride demands a retort that he doesn’t believe in. “You don’t understand. You couldn’t possibly understand – ”

“You’re the one who doesn’t understand,” Felix cuts in, stepping forward and placing a hand flat to Dimitri’s chest and pushing, harder and harder as the seconds pass. “You spent all your time looking for an excuse that you can die for instead of a reason that you should keep living… and you think you have the right to talk to me like you’re the only one who hurts?”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Dimitri says, voice low and harsh.

“You did all that knowing it was meaningless,” Felix continues. “Your existence… it is so devoid. It is nothing, it’s nothing. It’s nothing.”

There is something pressing at Dimitri’s throat from the inside, something hot and sharp that threatens to overflow. Felix continues to push at him and he continues to stand without yielding, but as the pressure grows, that nameless something also grows inside Dimitri, and he thinks he wants to wrap his fingers around Felix’s neck until Felix is rendered as impotent as he is by Felix’s words.

The argument was supposed to be with neither intent nor reason. But it’s not: Dimitri is.

“That’s why you fill yourself up with ghosts,” Felix says.

Dimitri would rather fill himself up on Felix instead. He doesn’t reply.

“You’re just looking away from your own emptiness,” Felix says.

Dimitri would rather throw himself in the void and drown instead. He doesn’t reply.

“Deny it,” Felix says.

“Deny it,” Felix says.

“Deny it,” Felix murmurs, and then he finally drops his hand.

Dimitri would rather not make a liar of himself. He doesn’t reply. They stop arguing. 

* * *

**02\. the** ** pathos of things**

Felix sits in Dimitri’s lap and crosses his legs – wanton, wanting, wanted. “Tell me to do something,” he says.

“Just do as you like,” Dimitri replies. He doesn’t quite feel tempted, and yet there is something appealing, something wickedly gratifying in having Felix like this: so pliant, so easy, so easy, so _easy._ He doesn’t understand Felix’s thoughts, they are to him as far away as the stars and less comprehensible than constellations – but he understands what it means when Felix lets himself be touched.

“Then, I want you to use me,” Felix answers, nipping Dimitri earlobe gently before murmuring into the shell of his ear – “Use me up until there’s nothing left.”

_Easily_, Dimitri thinks, and begins to consume with neither awareness nor distinction.

* * *

**01\. sum** **sine regno**

A strange period of time passes that can’t be comprehended with rationality, but eventually Felix realizes, and Dimitri realizes Felix realizes, and Felix realizes Dimitri realizes Felix realizes, ad infinitum, perpetuum, ad nauseum. Their carefully counterbalanced hierarchy of beliefs instantly collapses upon that moment, and Dimitri knows something else must soon follow: he believes in the rule of three.

“So that’s where you’ve been hiding my body,” Felix says. He reaches forward and slips his fingers into Dimitri’s chest – they go in without any resistance. He pushes his arm in and roots around in Dimitri’s ribcage – it doesn’t hurt at all. Only when Felix starts pulling out does Dimitri register a sensation that feels something like pain.

Out comes the first corpse: Felix, with his right arm dismembered, wrapped in navy and not teal. Then the second corpse: Felix, in his academy outfit, clutching the sword that used to be Dimitri’s. Then the third corpse: Felix, still a child, yet unaware of the imminent changing of things.

“So that’s why I’ve been trapped here,” Felix says.

“I’m sorry,” Dimitri says. _For not finding the right body to put you in_, he thinks.

Felix replies, “You’re sorry, but not for the right thing.”

“You’re right,” Dimitri says.

Felix replies, “I’m right, but not because I wanted to be.”

Dimitri brings his hands up and covers his face, but he can still see Felix with perfect clarity even when he closes his eye. “I gave up on all my other ghosts,” he says, “but not you. Why is that, Felix?”

He wants Felix to say: _Because I’m not a ghost._

Felix answers, “Because you’re not ready to face reality.”

“But that wasn’t real,” Dimitri says. When he saw that blade cut through Felix’s arm and slash into his chest – it wasn’t real. The blood was a dream; the sword was an illusion.

“That wasn’t real,” Dimitri says. When he saw the corpse on the ground that pretended to be Felix – it wasn’t real. Its face was a mask; its body was an effigy.

“That wasn’t real,” Dimitri whispers, and becomes the third hierarchy to collapse.

* * *

**00\. ****aegis**

Felix dies after the battle on Grondor Field in Dimitri’s place. His father and friends bury him in the monastery. Dimitri brings him back to life anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> I write like an asshole who just discovered e e cummings whenever I'm stressed. I know it, I accept it, and though internally I'm like **_( :3 /** whenever I read the stuff I wrote when I was stressed, it's uh... a better coping mechanism than anything presented within the fic, so there's that.
> 
> Title is a quote from Borges. I was also thinking a lot about Borges' poetry when I wrote this. "The Threatened One" and "The Labyrinth II" are very fraldarddyd core in my humble opinion.
> 
> If you like, you can RT this on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/_deplore/status/1189626931270082561). Also, you can find other (mostly more informal, unedited nonsense haha) writing of mine on my [DW](http://deplore.dreamwidth.org). Thank you for reading, especially because of everything I chose to make this fic be :,^)


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